


Crisis of Faith

by Persephone



Series: Definition of Love [2]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, Military, POV Alternating, POV First Person, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-09
Updated: 2011-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-27 03:04:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Persephone/pseuds/Persephone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sin and consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_This is what I believe. That my soul is a dark forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self. That I must have the courage to let them come and go._

 _-D.H. Lawrence_

On the night of my religious conversion over three years ago, I had fallen into delirium and lay wasted among corrupted icons of my faith. I had been at a crossroads and had not even known. But in the pitch black of sin, God’s calling had shone like a clear light, telling me to go make a better man of myself.

So I had found the strength within and left behind the things that chained me, following a sergeant in the Army Corps of Engineers after their work on the levees was stopped to go to war. And when the time came, it was no surprise to me that I was chosen to be a medic in the Army, given the opportunity to serve and to heal rather than to take and corrupt. It was the coin I owed God, and I repaid it with no small sense of obligation.

It was, I believe, this absolute assurance in my worth as a medic that delayed my understanding of what was happening to me in the woods of Bastogne.

We were sent into Belgium in mid-December, after Hitler had caught us all by surprise by launching his strongest offensive of the war. We were sent in so fast we weren’t even allowed time to be resupplied at our camp in Mourmelon. The three battalions of the 101st Division, of which Easy was one company, went in with no supplies to speak of. No medical, only the uniforms on our backs, not meant for winter weather, and whatever ammunition the men had left over from our time in Holland.

After fighting almost nonstop from D-Day, we hadn’t expected to enter into combat again at least until the spring, and with this deployment it was obvious that morale among the men was at an all time low.

Almost immediately, as we dug into our foxholes, Captain Winters began moving among the men, letting them see that they didn’t suffer their plight alone, talking to them, and sometimes making them laugh.

Before long I begun to anticipate the sound of his voice floating somewhere nearby. I took pleasure in the times I could sit and have a smoke as I listened to him perform his small miracles on the attitudes of the men.

When it came to him and I, I had locked away the night I spent with him in Paris in a corner of my mind, and there it mostly stayed. But on some nights I would get restless and my thoughts would break free. I would remember the sensation of doing wild things between his legs, of falling into such darkness while he moved under me, drew it out of me. On those nights I was lost.

I knew my transgression like the back of my hand. Sin of the worst kind. The kind I loved the most. So the first chance I got I had gone before God and confessed all I could. Maybe I hadn’t come as clean as I ought, but I had been sincere in my regret for the things that had excited me. I presumed that after all this time it was no news to God, and that he would understand.

And I left it at that.

Several days into our stay, I found out that this was not to be the case.

It happened on Christmas Eve night.

I had found a foxhole apart from the one I shared with my fellow medic and had taken to being by myself, weighed down with a feeling that an illness I had been holding off was coming on strong.

Close above my head, I heard the sound of incoming artillery. Yet I remained curled in the foxhole and no amount of wishing would make me get up. I was overcome with the feeling that I could not help whomever was going to get hit. My hands, my legs, my head, felt foreign to me.

The explosion hit with a terrifying impact, tearing at my eardrums. It was followed by stunned silence as concussed soldiers tried to get back to working order. Then the cries for help came.

It was Captain Winters yelling. Shocked, hoarse cries.

My heart raced against my ribcage, but I was frozen to the ground. I knew from his cries he was not the one hit, but he needed me. But nothing I did moved a muscle on me.

Someone jumped in my foxhole and shoved me out.

I crawled from my knees to my feet and ran to the sound of his voice. When I reached the circle of officers, my knees locked and I almost turned back around. If I could, I would have.

But all I could do was stand there and stare in disbelief.

It was Lieutenant Welsh lying on the ground, bleeding from the legs. Captain Winters knelt gripping him, yelling to me. Over and over.

It was a grotesque distortion of what had happened in Holland. But this time I was the one who was putting a man in danger because I could not do the right thing.

I tried moving, but still I could not.

Winters hollered at me, his eyes shot through with fear. I had never seen a look like that on him. I instantly dropped to my knees. His voice was at my ear, asking me what he should do to help.

I replied more sharply than I meant. “Give him morphine!”

He did so, moving fast, while on my part I could not recognize the movement of my hands. They seemed too slow to be mine.

I had to still be sleeping in my foxhole suffering through a bad dream in which God had turned his face from me. My will, my strength, and my ability to perform my duties, had all been stripped away from me and I was left with nothing but my error.

I had barely pulled Harry’s bandages tight before he was hauled off to the jeep, everyone moving except me.

I was still on my knees and speechless with surprise. I had felt a strange thing happening to me in the woods, my hands were always so cold, I had felt disconnected from the men. A conversation with a nurse in town had worried me a great deal, made me wonder about our perceptions of our gifts from God, but I had stayed with my own assurance of what I knew.

But now I felt lost.

Winters came back to my side. I braced myself for the disappointment he was about to hurl at me. I told myself it would be a welcome jolt to my malaise.

But he was a man gentle by nature, and his only words were to tell me to go into town and find myself a hot meal. It was all the admonishment I knew I would get, but it was more than enough for me.  


* * *

____________________

  
Eugene wouldn’t look at me for days. I called daily meetings with the company leaders as soon as we dug in, to stay informed on how the men were doing, and it was at one of these evening sessions that I finally brought it out in the open.

Colonel Sink had taken Strayer up to Regiment and had put me in acting command of the battalion. It meant I was not only able to go back into combat with the men instead of typing up inventory reports, but also that I was now responsible for two more companies in addition to Easy.

Our situation was so poor, between the lack of supplies and the fear of combat fatigue bearing down on the men, that I was depending on trusted sergeants in Easy to take care of the men for me. The medics were an indispensable part of that, and of them, Eugene was my most important asset.

I had heard him going through the woods checking into foxholes beginning the night we got there, and I had never been more glad to have him in the company. Which was why I noticed as soon as it started happening that something was up with him.

Even before Harry, I had asked him and he hadn’t been willing to say. After Harry, I suspected he was embarrassed and having trouble apologizing. I remembered him saying in Paris he had had the same problem after losing his temper in Holland.

So that evening after the meeting, I kept him after everyone had left.

He stood with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, his head down and his helmet covering his face.

“Gene, it’s okay about Harry. You of all people should know that.”

“Yes sir,” he said shortly. “Coulda moved faster though.”

“You got there. That’s all that matters in the end.”

“Yes, Captain,” he said. “Thank you sir.”

“You’re welcome.”

But he still wouldn’t look at me.

I looked over at where Nix sat in battalion CP, looking in my direction. I looked at Eugene still being reluctant, and went ahead and dismissed him. I went back to the command post and sat across from Nix and took the can of hot coffee he handed me from the stove.

“Did you see Doc just now? Something’s the matter with him. I asked him but he won’t say. ”

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh what?”

“And here I thought my work between you two was done. I guess this means I should remain on high alert.”

“Why? You got another pass to Paris on you?”

“Hah. Someone’s pushing their luck.”

He took the liquor canteen he had been warming over the stove and held it between his hands. He rubbed it slowly. I kept watching him. He was obviously avoiding eye contact with me.

“Say it, Lew. I know you aren’t done yet.”

“Say what?”

“ _Nix…_ ”

“Okay, fine!” He let out a breath and shot me a look. “I have to admit I’m curious.”

“About what?”

“Dick,” he groaned, then held the canteen over the stove and stopped talking.

I waited.

Finally he looked up. “What!”

“Lew, you’ve been giving me funny looks ever since I got back from Paris. You might as well get it off your chest.”

“I haven’t been giving you funny looks!” he cried. Then he quieted down. “Aw, come on, Dick. You can’t blame me for wondering how in the world you two even relate to each other. There he is all...dark and...Cajun, and here you are, can’t even hear the word _date_ without being in danger of blushing to death.”

I rolled my eyes. “I manage. Thanks.”

He slowly lifted a hand and pointed to my face. “It’s minus twenty out and you’re turning red.”

I narrowed my eyes at him over the rim of the cup. “Can we drop it?”

“What, you changed your mind about wanting to hear what’s on my mind?”

“Yeah. I have.”

Nix turned the canteen over and over in his hands. “Or about those bruises?”

“You mean the ones I got fighting in a war?”

He snorted softly. Then a small smile formed on his face.

“You’re pretty funny, Dick,” he said. But other than that, let me have the last word.

~*~

For the next ten days we sat in our foxholes. We were waiting for orders to attack the village of Foy, across the field from our position. But none came except “Watch the line,” which irritated me so much I couldn’t even talk about it. I wanted to ask what the heck they thought we were doing out here.

Our supplies were practically gone, even food, temperatures were below zero at night and the men were freezing nearly to death. And that wasn’t even taking into account the constant terror of air strikes and artillery barrages from across the field. The men were starting to fall apart.

I was constantly on the alert for the look in a man’s eyes that signaled he was reaching his limits. I was doing anything I could think of to relieve their situation on the line, rotating them every two hours, day and night, off outpost duty where the pressure was worst.

But it was like trying to hold back a flood. The only thing keeping them together was their own sheer will.

So when I was seeing someone like Eugene curled up in a foxhole hardly able to make himself move, I knew we were in a bad way.

~*~

Another seven days came and went.

Nix told me all the divisions in the area were ready to go on the offensive, but at the top General Montgomery was still twiddling his thumbs. I didn’t care what his reasons were, I didn’t want to hear any excuses.

Meanwhile in Easy we were losing good men to sickness, torn limbs from the shelling, and accidental deaths. Some men in Dog and Fox companies were even rumored to be giving themselves minor wounds to get off the line. No one from Easy did any such thing, but the pressure to find a way out was enormous.

I was still seeing Eugene crouched over foxholes talking sense to the men to keep them grounded. But when he was alone he would curl up against a tree, staring defiantly into space.

He still kept away from me and I still didn’t know whether it was something I had done, or what.

One night in our foxhole I took a deep breath and said to Nix, “I’m really worried about Doc.”

Nix was silent for a moment on his side of the foxhole.

“Those medics are out there seeing nothing but the dead and wounded,” he said after a while. “Everyone’s problem is their problem. They can’t be anything but strong for the men. It has to take its toll sometime.”

His words struck me in a way I couldn’t express, even to him. He had no idea how right he was.

I was beginning to understand all too well that no one could hold out forever. Not even me.

It wasn’t that I was afraid of breaking. I couldn’t see myself going that way. But I had started feeling another type of fear, the knowledge that I was soon going to get hit.

It wasn’t just some nagging feeling either. Nix had gotten clipped in Holland. Harry hadn’t been so lucky. I was next. I got surer of it every day.

I just hoped whatever it was, it wouldn’t be too bad. And I knew it wasn’t really fair after what Nix had just said, but I prayed to God when it happened, Eugene would be there to take care of me.  


* * *

____________________

  
I knelt shivering beside Captain Winters at the foxhole of one of his staff sergeants from battalion.

He had called me over to look at the man, who he suspected was on the verge of a severe case of trenchfoot. I had seen Winters talking with him on several occasions, trying to talk him out of once again volunteering for patrol when finding volunteers was becoming a difficulty.

Winters would tell him he didn’t have to go, and each time the sergeant would quietly insist that he wanted to go. I could understand why Winters personally sought me out to take care of him.

The sergeant was fast asleep, curled tight and stiff, clearly beyond exhaustion.

Winters turned to me. “Get him off the line if you have to.”

I nodded.

“Eugene.”

He had spoken softly, but I had heard him loud and clear. I kept my eyes on the man in the foxhole.

“Yes sir?”

“Look at me.”

I did.

Our eyes caught in the dim light, and as we stared at each other he slowly began to flush. Yet he never so much as blinked.

“Whatever’s on your mind, you’d tell me if I could help, right?”

“I would, Captain.”

His eyes searched mine.

“So what is it?”

In all my life, I had never met a man so bold.

“It’s nothing, Captain,” I said. “Nothing but old news. I’ll handle it.”

He waited, but I said nothing more. Then he squeezed my arm and said, “Okay. Hang tough.”

Then he got up and left on his regular walk to check on the men in the outposts. I lowered myself into the foxhole.

I cradled the sergeant’s foot in my lap and carefully unlaced his boot, touching his sole to see how bad he had the ailment. I breathed easier as I saw it wasn’t too bad, but he was going to have to get himself into town.

I knew a soldier could appeal to his commanding officer’s sense of pride in him to stay on the line, but Winters wanted me to declare him medically unfit if it came down to it. A thing a soldier could more easily accept as it spoke to no fault of his own.

It was such an understanding he had of men’s minds that made me feel love for him with every beat of my heart.

It was why I was angry at God.

I knew God did not punish me for the way I felt about him, for it was not a sin to love, and it could not be a sin to love that man. My punishment came from the arrogance of presuming that I could keep some part of that night in Paris with me.

And why could I not?

For almost one month I had kept my distance from him in penance of what I had done. Even knowing there were dark, empty foxholes littering the edges of our position I was sure I could lure him into, I had not gone near him. I had not let my desires rule my head, I had not run wild.

Yet God saw fit to keep shutting me out, though my sin was nothing new--a weakness of mind. In these woods I was seeing all the weaknesses of men, and I could see that the way we as mortals bore our condition was in how we supported each other. Turning our faces away from one another was not compassion, and God in his mercy should have known that.

If ever there was a time in which God saw fit to abandon an otherwise faithful soul, this was not it. I felt I was right to be frustrated.

I stopping thinking and bit out a curse, and the sergeant finally came awake.

He stared at me with haunted, bleary eyes, and when he spoke his voice was hoarse.

“I had a really bad dream,” he said, blinking wet eyes. “I dreamt I went AWOL from here, ran as far as I could. But when I stopped to rest, I fell asleep, and guess where I woke up, Doc? Right here. In this same foxhole.” He started to cry. “I’m so fucking scared,” he sobbed. “I wanna go home.”

I moved up and got under the blanket with him and wrapped my arms around him. I held him while he continued to hitch and whimper.

“You’ll be all right,” I told him. But he could not stop his tears. He wept until he seemed to find some calm within himself, and drifted back to sleep. I laid my hands on him and felt nothing. No heat, no power, no calm passed from me to him.

Still I closed my eyes and prayed over him, calling on God, despite knowing that he was not listening.

~*~


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty days into our stay in the woods, we finally got the orders to attack Foy. I was furious. I’d thought the end was finally in sight for Easy, but Colonel Sink wanted Easy to lead the attack. Never mind that I had Dog company at the ready on our right and Fox in reserve. I withheld my anger.

But less than a day later, fresh orders came down from Regiment that 2d Battalion was to push forward and execute the attack on Noville, a village farther up the road.

By this time I was so pissed even Nix had to stay out of my way for the rest of the day. And what was worse, the conditions in the rear were as bad as when we’d first arrived in Bastogne.

That night before the attack Nix got an earful. He didn’t say a peep though, just laid there and listened to me go on, occasionally shuddering from the god awful cold.

When he at some point shivered really badly, I sighed and turned towards him.

“Are you tired of hearing me complain yet?”

“Never.”

It was way past his bedtime and tonight he really must have regretted having me for a foxhole partner.

I was so exhausted, cold and disheartened, I couldn’t even sustain my anger.

“It’s going to be one hell of a run for that shoulder, Nix.”

“Well then, your plan better work, Dick.”

I sighed hard. “Yeah. It better. Or I’m about to make the worst mistake of my life. The good news is, if I’m wrong I probably won’t live through it to get a demotion.”

Nix was silent. But from his breathing I could tell he was still awake. I elbowed him. “Lew.”

He grunted softly, “Time to go to bed.”

I folded my hands over my stomach and let him get his rest.

I tried to think through my plan for our approach on Noville. But I was tired and until I got my orders on what hour to move, all I could do was wait anyway.

So I closed my eyes and told myself to get some sleep, that the end was in sight.

And just like that, I starting thinking of a pair of hands.

Before Paris my imagination had only been able to go as far as seeing them giving me first aid. Not any more.

Now thinking about them made me feel so hot I felt as though I was running a fever. I pressed my lips together, knowing I was probably breathing a lot harder than I should be.

He had done those strange, exotic things to me, while his dark voice gasped such wicked things in my ear. At times he had spoken a language I was sure wasn’t French, and it had made me feel like the ground had dropped out from under me.

My eyes drifted closed as I opened my mouth and breathed easier. I sure was glad Nix wasn’t awake to see my face, because I was definitely turning red.

I told myself we had only one more fight to go, and prayed that we would all make it.  


* * *

____________________

  
The attack on Noville loomed over our one relatively peaceful night in nearly one month. I was sitting on a wooden crate, smoking and watching the men hustle for their foxholes, when Captain Nixon appeared at my side.

I had just left Captain Winters after giving him some food. I had seen him standing outside a small group of officers staring dismally at his bowl. Because of his strict policy that enlisted men eat before officers, I could imagine what was left for him in that bowl. Though he had been trying to keep his composure, I hadn’t even asked, I’d just gone and gotten him more to eat.

He told me thank you, and I said he was welcome, and left. It was not two minutes later that Captain Nixon showed up.

“Hey there,” he said.

I frowned at the ground, then put out my cigarette. I slowly stood up and shoved my hands in my jacket pockets and looked warily at him.

“Jump-off for the attack is at high noon,” Nixon said, his eyes following every move I made. “As I’m sure you know.”

“That’s what I heard.”

I waited, wondering why, if he’d seen me with Winters earlier, he was under the impression that something was wrong between me and his friend. He otherwise never sought me out for a one on one.

“You don’t have to look at me that way,” he said, laughing with not much humor.

“My apologies, sir. Don’t mean to. I just can’t help but wonder what it is I did wrong this time.”

“Ahh,” he sighed, smiling. “The thanks I get. Well, here’s the deal. Dick’s pissed because high noon is a good five hours after first light. He thinks if we sustain casualties going through all that field, what with the Germans on high ground, our losses’ll be pretty heavy. He’s right of course.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But I noticed you’ve been kinda keeping your distance from him lately.”

I opened my mouth but no words came. I shut it.

“Listen, Eugene.”

That caught my attention.

“He hasn’t said anything to me, but I think he’s going through a rough patch. I think he’s afraid he’s going to get hit.”

I stared at him, my heart no longer beating. Winters could not get hit. Not at a time when I was feeling less than myself. It was while thinking this that I realized just what my stubbornness toward God could cost me.

Nixon shrugged. “Personally I think it’s just exhaustion talking. I mean, we’re all really tired.”

That was fact. But throughout our stay in the woods Nixon had always looked the same to me. Never any more stressed than the day before. For the first time since we had gone into combat, I wondered what host of things his drinking was able to shield him from. I could not imagine.

“Now I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job or anything,” he continued. “But I have to say, I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable if, were anything to happen to him, no one would have to come _get_ you.”

I was no longer able to meet his eyes. Perhaps I couldn’t imagine what drinking did for him, but I could imagine what it took for him to stand aside while I got what he himself so badly wanted.

“I understand you, Captain Nixon.”

“Great,” he said, with a look of resignation. Then he nodded and left in the direction of battalion CP.

~*~

Our crossing of the field into Noville was something I, nor I don’t think any soldier who followed Winters’ lead that morning, would ever forget.

When we had initially heard his plan, most of the men were slack jawed with disbelief. Nevertheless, if they were going to do it under anyone’s orders, it was going to be Winters’.

So on that bright day at high noon, while the Germans sat in their tanks staring down at us from across the way, we followed Winters’ command and walked across two kilometers of open field in single file.

Each man walked in frantic silence, sure of the devastation soon to come from enemy fire. I could hear myself breathing, my ears sharply tuned for cries of medic. To our left we watched 1st Battalion take a terrible beating, but nothing came our way.

At last we reached our destination, a shoulder bordering the southern perimeter of town, forming a natural protection from their guns.

It was only in that safety that it dawned on me that because he had made us walk in single file, in the footprint of the man before us, Winters had spared us the effort of individually forging our way through knee deep snow. So we were not worn down in case we had needed to defend ourselves.

It was a plan beyond bold, and succeeding so astonishingly, it left each man feeling exhilarated and me feeling as if I had walked on water. That night I went to see him.

He was curled on his side on the northern face of a small hill, away from his lieutenants. His eyes were closed and he was still, but he opened them as I approached. He watched me in silence.

I knelt by his side. “For you, Captain,” I said, unfolding the two blankets I had brought with me.

He thanked me, shivering continuously while I draped them over his body.

“How are the men doing?” he asked, his voice hoarse with cold.

I settled back on my heels and told him they were all right.

He nodded. “We’ve been lucky so far. We’ve still got to get from here into the town itself. Pray our luck holds out and the Germans are still looking the other way.”

I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Once, I had heard he saw his strategies in dreams while he slept. I could believe it.

“Ain’t that much luck in the world,” I told him. “What you got is a good plan.”

“Maybe. But it might get real bad real fast.”

I nodded, hearing what he was saying about the casualties we might expect.

“You’ve been outstanding with the men, Eugene. Stay sharp out there.”

“You too, Captain,” I replied. Then I looked him straight in the eye. “Sir, you know you ain’t gotta call me but once, and I’ll be there.”

His eyes moved over my face. I sat still for him.

Slowly, he nodded. “I believe you.”

“Well, catch some Zs then.”

He shivered and pulled the blankets tighter. “I’m too cold to sleep. Too damned cold to do anything.”

I pressed my thumb to my mouth and hid my smile. “For now, huh?”

He looked at me, then gave me a slow, lopsided smile. “Yeah,” he said. “For now. So don’t go thinking you’re safe yet.”

I lost control of my smile. I touched his arm, then left him alone with his thoughts.

That night I put aside my defiance, and I went before God.

~*~

I was crouched pressed up against a wall of a bombed out building.

Noville was behind us and Rachamps the only thing between us and seeing relief back at the rear.

My head was calm as I listened for the cries of the wounded. Soon it came.

The screams of Joe Liebgott, then the sound of Tommy gun fire. I took off in Joe’s direction and barged right into a barn. In a flash I saw that Liebgott had gunned down a German soldier, several others standing together in a tight panicked knot.

To the far left was Sergeant Hale, on his knees with his hands around his throat. Blood spurted from between his fingers.

I was at his side before I thought it. I dropped to my knees and pushed him to the ground and got sulfa on his throat. It had been cut open, presumably by the German solider Liebgott had killed.

The world was crystal clear and my mind just as sharp. My hands moved with the power of God in me, so calm, so fast I could hardly see them work.

~*~

It hadn’t been easy, but it had felt right. The night we waited to roll into Noville, I had acknowledged my wrongs before God. I came clean and had asked to be made whole again.

At the time I had meant it, and my penitence had been rewarded.

But now I sat in a small chapel in a convent that Easy had made its command post for the night, a roof over our heads for the first time in a month. Beside me was a priest, a man with patient eyes and a congenial smile, who took confessions and gave guidance.

I hadn’t come to him for confession, as it had never been my way to confess to a man. But I sought advice because from here, I did not know how to proceed.

Somewhere in the convent a choir of young girls sang to the men, their voices faint and calming. But in the hallway Winters was meeting with Sergeant Lipton and our new commanding officer, Lieutenant Speirs, speaking to them in a low voice.

When there was relative silence I thought I could hear his intake of breath, his quiet breathing. His heartbeat.

It was, perhaps, unfortunate that I came to be sitting in a place like this under such circumstances. Objects of worship and ritual decorated the walls from floor to ceiling. They tugged on memories of so many other abandoned nights, baiting me to think hard of the things I could do with him in this place.

I was heated almost beyond the ability to concentrate. In my mind I toyed with the tether by which I had bound myself to God. I felt how thin it was, how fragile it felt against the sharpness of my need.

“What becomes of our relationship with God,” I asked the priest, “when we make promises we can’t later keep?”

The priest thought on it. “Did you mean to keep it at the time you made it?”

“I always do.”

“Then what was in your heart at the time you made it is the most important thing. When you were a small child and made promises with a pure heart but later broke them, God would still accept your confession then, would He not?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“Why not?”

“We ain’t always been Catholic.”

He waited, but I had nothing more to say. When I looked up at him his expression was unreadable.

Then he began to explain the road to salvation, a difficult one, he said. Losing our way did not mean the path was no longer there. He said other things. But in the hallway Winters was wrapping up with Lipton and Speirs, and I had made up my mind.

I looked at him. “I gotta go.”

He blinked. “All right, if you must.”

“Will you be here in the morning?”

“Yes I will.”

I stood up. “Guess I’ll see you then.” He nodded in response, and I went out from the chapel and into the hallway.

Winters looked my way when I entered the corridor, beckoning me over as the two men left. I went to him.

“Lieutenant Foley tells me he’s recommending you for a Distinguished Service Cross for your actions in Bastogne,” he said. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “I oughta tell him thank you.”

He stood tall and still, his eyes the only things moving as he watched me.

“Well,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Goodnight, Eugene.”

I almost could not reply for the beating of my heart.

~*~

I knocked on the door to his convent cell just once. He opened it and stepped backwards and I followed him in. I came to a stop an inch from him and began working up the courage to touch him while he shut the door behind me. He slid his hand into my shirt collar, curling it around my neck. He pulled me in for a kiss.

We were both breathing so hard, we could not sustain the kiss. I flexed my hands and placed them on his hips. He immediately pushed forward, moaning softly in my mouth. I grew hard at the sensation of his erection brushing mine.

“Do what you did to me the last time.”

I looked up at him. In the dim electric light his eyes bore into me.

“All of it?”

“Yeah.”

And with that he pulled back and began to unbutton his uniform shirt with slow movements, until his shirt fell open. In the low light I caught a glimpse of his white skin and my head caught fire.

I felt myself slipping downwards inside, and no threat of damnation could check the excitement awakening in me.

I was once again a child of the great depression, running wild in swamps and secret places, finding my own religion and rituals, staking my own place in the scheme of things. And he was the culmination of all those desires.

His bewitching skin, the warm blood flowing in his veins, the goodness inside him that I wanted to take into me and feel inside me. A living icon.

He pulled on his belt and unbuttoned his trousers, holding aside his shirt to push it down. I heard my own breathing as I saw his color down there. I wanted him with a sensation that felt like hunger.

His hand was tight in my hair as I lowered myself to my knees.

I gripped his thighs, went still as he began to move. The sounds we both made, the need I had not wanted him to hear that first night, slid off the walls. His hands found my wrists. He pulled my arms over my head, pressing them into the door.

I gave myself over to him, used my mouth on him until his knees buckled. I rose as he shuddered and pushed against me, sinking his teeth into my earlobe, moving backwards and taking me with him.

We ended up on the bed, him on his stomach and me climbing on top of him. He breathed slowly, deeply, his back moving against my chest, his life force pulsing beneath my body.

For long moments neither of us moved, knowing we were sharing the unspoken acknowledgement that we had both survived the woods.

He struggled out of his shirt in slow intoxicating moves. I watched him, then touched those parts of him that were scarred and calloused, and watched as his skin flush with color from his nape down to the small of his back.

He overcame all sense and reason in me, awoke such depths of desire in me, to worship the things I loved, to perform the acts that would make me feel them inside me, make me taste them on my tongue.

He must have known, but he never judged, and he never hesitated. That night in Paris I had got what I could never have believed he could give, and it was what I had withheld in my confessions to God. And what had cost me my strength in Bastogne.

But with my loins slowly heating, growing heavy with desire, it was what I was about to repeat before God.

In the morning I would talk to God.

But for now I lowered myself to his body, rubbed myself against the backs of his thighs. I licked my hand and touched myself, then began to sink into him. He pushed back, gasping as if he were burning up, gripping my thighs and pulling me in, writhing until he was satisfied.

I rubbed my mouth against his nape, listened to his breathing get louder. He slowed his movements, pulling his head to one side, causing my mouth to slip down his nape.

I was finding it hard to breathe, knowing what we both wanted. I traced his vein with my tongue, smelled his skin and licked his throat. I felt myself grow harder inside him and felt him go still. But he was groaning my name, his voice hoarse with anticipation.

I slowly began to thrust into him, my teeth scraping against his skin with each movement, tasting more and more of him. He came alive, his breathing turning hard and fast under me, and my needs got rougher.

There was no need to see the wooden crosses nailed to the walls, or the prayer beads lying on the bed-stand next to where we performed.

For I could already feel them on my skin, digging in when I would bring them down from their places, when I used them to indulge in the pleasures of his body.

I gave myself over to sensation, closed my eyes and fucked us both euphoric, on the understanding that tonight it was just me and him, and no God.

~*~

 _End_


End file.
